The Network Garden - Mark Sigal's Blogtag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-1797182015-03-10T00:26:53-07:00Digital media, being an entrepreneur, intelligent investing and other interesting nuggetsTypePadRuminations on a Watch and a New Era at Appletag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c285b53ef01b8d0e7acd7970c2015-03-10T00:26:53-07:002015-03-12T01:29:43-07:00"We continue to innovate. We continue to push forward. All of our energy is on making the best products in the world, that empower people, that enrich their lives. This is what Apple is all about. This is what EVERYONE...hypermark

"We continue to innovate. We continue to push forward. All of our energy is on making the best products in the world, that empower people, that enrich their lives. This is what Apple is all about. This is what EVERYONE in Apple is focused on." - Tim Cook

Weird and Wonderful. Brilliant precision coexisting with fuzzy purpose, an occasional manufactured quality, a sense that the product this time may actually be ahead of the message.

Think of the medley of ideas put forth today, and their presentation.

Apple changed the narrative today. The Apple of Jobs was the Crazy Ones that had succeeded against the odds and cultural mores.

The Apple of Tim Cook is about the values, responsibilities and sense of privilege that go with being an institution, as Apple has assuredly become.

How many amazing, beautiful videos did Apple present today that were crafted with cadence, visual artistry and narrative.

Jony Ive's voice was a star of the event, delivering annunciation and clarity of purpose. If they ever remake 2001: A Space Odyssey, I am totally voting for Ive as the voice of HAL. Yet, Jony Ive, the person, felt strangely absent from the event.

Apple hearts China, as was evident from its stores, markets and share of video footage. And well it should. Is there a non-native brand that is even remotely as China-infused as Apple?

The Game of Thrones trailer was the "money shot" of the HBO Now exclusive announcement, and it was great. At $14.99/month, it's a cord cutters delight. On the other hand, this really helps ESPN, as the cable and satellite guys need exclusivity to keep their business model from losing its share of margin.

Apple Pay and Apple Watch feel like a match made in heaven. The idea of frictionless commerce, as evidenced by the Coke Vending Machine example (100K units by the end of the year), is just..WOW! Apple Pay's network footprint is over 700K locations across the US.

The idea of Apple Watch evolving into a Key Fob is a killer app. The hotel key is certainly cool, and you can see how being on vacation would be really cool if you could go around with just your phone and watch. Similarly, you can see why your Audi, Mercedes, BMW, Tesla and Scion would be logical, how Car Play might augment it. You can see your front door or garage opening, and the tie in with Home Kit. There is, however, a question of how the Fob would work in phone less mode (ideally, quite well), and how it's secured.

Employee Fleet Management feels like a killer app. Take the above Fob, make it your office key, time card. Tie in the health element, which can funnel better insurance rates. There is a subsidy to be had in that, no? One can imagine IBM being adept at targeting verticals within this domain.

Apple's strategy is best thought of as a real estate play. There is a continuum from Desktop to Lap, Pocket, Bag and Wrist. There is Retail, iTunes and Apple Pay. iOS devices are now priced between $69 and $17,000, as Horace Dediu noted. Who says iOS can't support a wide variety of business models?

The "Here" Now Device. Apple Watch is the device where the app and the user's contacts can know that you are wearing the device in a given place right now. The Uber app was a great example of how this can work.

ResearchKit. This was another one of those weird bolt ons, that is beautiful at the same time. ResearchKit is software framework that turns Apple Watch into a powerful diagnostic tool. Apple announced five apps - Parkinson’s Disease, Diabetes, Cardio, Asthma and Breast Cancer. They made it open source, touted how they empower the individual, give them privacy control and the ability to choose what data is shared.

The Field of Play of the Apple Watch includes numerous Wrist-able actions, like glances, twists and hard presses. The combination of Haptic and Taptic is a powerful idea that can grow over time. The concept of being able to answer the phone, getting health cues, "stand up and walk," and do Siri -- arguably more naturally made for the Watch than the phone -- and the idea that messages can easily be shared, or generate haptic, visual or aural manifestations is really cool.

Yet, here's the deal. iPhone was a "you know you've been wanting something like this, but didn't know it was possible" type of device. Everybody wanted one, it laid right on top of the iPod and iTunes, and there was nothing so caveat free in mobile before it. Once the iOS Ecosystem and App Store took root, it was a forest fire.

By contrast, Apple Watch is a schizophrenic beast. It is a harmonious extension and unique derivative of iOS and the iPhone. It is a luxury watch. But the fact that it's an Amalgam of both makes it some kind of Other.

Will watch enthusiasts flock to it? Will non watch wearers? Which segment of the market will embrace it, or not? Will it take off like iPhone did, and keep going higher, or will it reach a certain baseline and plateau, as iPad has.

Selling Stage Matters: A Tale of Two Sales Managerstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c285b53ef01b7c7455ca8970b2015-02-16T23:30:03-08:002015-02-16T23:29:53-08:00Years back, I started a company that built products that were (initially) selling to the early adopter "visionary" market. It wasn't our stated goal to sell to visionaries. It just turned out that we were early. We went through a...hypermark

Years back, I started a company that built products that were (initially) selling to the early adopter "visionary" market.

It wasn't our stated goal to sell to visionaries. It just turned out that we were early.

We went through a few sales guys.

Sales were lumpy, and every deal was a hard fought win.

What got the company over the hump was Early Sales Manager (ESM).

Early Sales Manager approached customer opportunities as a negotiation between Sales and Engineering.

Do what it takes to win deals.

Visionaries want this custom feature or that; so give it to them.

It was the right answer for the moment, and it worked.

The Engine of Growth had started.

A Fork in the Road

As the company grew, the tactics that ESM used to win deals, and the maverick mindset that it took to make those moves in the first place, hit a point of dissonance.

The company was finding product-market fit, and so it became more important to think about product lifecycle, sales model and selling organization.

Exit Early Sales Manager. Enter Growth Sales Manager.

Growth Sales Manager (GSM) brought a philosophy, a discipline and an organizational approach to growth.

GSM view of growth anchored the company's products as a combination of recurring revenue and one time lump sums.

It presented a richer view of how to exercise financial management THROUGH sales management.

GSM's view was that this drove a specific selling methodology, strict quotas and strong reporting.

Most critically, GSM embraced the view that the organization was a more than the sum of the parts exercise.

And the company was better for it.

Within two years, the organization grew into a vibrant business, first partnering with the Number Two player in the space, and then selling outright to the Number One player.

Flash Forward: The Next Company

Once again, the company that was early.

The founders felt certain that GSM could do for their growth what he'd done for the last company.

But GSM failed to find the same magic.

In the end, he flailed so bad that he needed to be put out of his misery.

What happened?

In retrospect, what had happened was that whereas Early Sales Manager excelled at the Early Stage type of deal, Growth Sales Manager excellent at cultivating and harvesting.

Whereas ESM struggled once order and consistency were the name of the game, GSM struggled when the ability to tap dance, and use gum and tape to cobble deals together was required.

The moral of the story is this.

Know what stage of the business you are building, and know what type of selling method and sales management you need for that stage.

Nine Technology Trends that will Change Everythingtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c285b53ef01bb07d9cc17970d2015-01-14T01:43:45-08:002015-01-22T01:43:54-08:00The road ahead is finally becoming clear. From the moment the web entered our conciousness, to when it became evident that the newspaper business was going to die, the writing was on the wall. Blood in the streets was to...hypermark

The road ahead is finally becoming clear.

From the moment the web entered our conciousness, to when it became evident that the newspaper business was going to die, the writing was on the wall.

Blood in the streets was to be the new normal, and certain types of companies would seemingly collapse overnight.

One moral of the story was that in the connected age that which can be commoditized would be commoditized.

The realization of this truth has been painful, though. It's taken over a decade to play out. A lot of jobs have been destroyed. Many more have seen their earning power squeezed.

The shift from a W2-driven Model to a 1099-driven one is emblematic, rendering both economic and psycho-social impact.

But the incredible news is this. With so much change and so many worker bees suddenly cast into entreprenurship, necessity became the mother of invention, and LOTs of innovation and invention was created.

Vertical Integration and the Blended Age

A by-product of all of this innovation is that the tremendous amounts of R&D spend, the emergence of data-driven insight, and the maturation of the tech industry fabric has lead to really good native experieces to users.

The new models are born of the notion that differentiation is about curation, integration and cultivation of an ecosystem.

As platforms mature, a wide variety of service/business models take hold that are both integrated and organic. One only has to look at Apple, Uber, Google, Amazon and AirBNB to see this playing out.

My meta thesis is this. Vertical Integration from customer to connector to code is the new wave.

The rise of mobile has sealed the deal; that's now the best way to deliver great user experiences, and consumers will increasingly expect to be delighted by seamless, rich, real time and highly mobile experiences.

The beneficiaries of all of this goodness creation will be far and wide.

This the new engine of growth. It will operate with nine (9) primary "gears," detailed below.

Each of these gears will offer deep utility and delight as standalone offerings, but will also be "blend-able," yielding value chains previously unfathomable:

Artificial Intelligence: The idea of algorithmic, machine and data driven learning is already in plain site. Google is the patron saint of this domain.

Genetic Engineering: Does anyone doubt that now that we have unwrapped the Code, we are going to fully explore its implications?

3D Printing: If we can 'print' microprocessors on silicon wafers, who says we can't print limbs, custom vehicles, cities and matter itself?

Drones: This is how the robot age begins to become omni-present in our culture.

Virtual Reality: Close your eyes. Imagine the metaverse of Snow Crash, and know that it's within reach. Within five years, this will no longer be science fiction.

Renting Economy: Anything (people, product or service) will be able to be procured on-demand at a real time market price, and it'll be as easy as pushing a button.

Security and Privacy: Data breeches and indentity theft are seemingly unstoppable. Such challenges are bound to inspire tremendous technology innovation in obvious and non obvious ways.

Mesh Networks: Once upon a time, it was hard to fathom needing a computer in the home. Now, everyone has SEVERAL devices, and many more internet-capable things are funneling into this domain (see Apple Watch). Rich new experiences will coalesce around medical, security, entertainment, daily health and communications.

Netting it Out: The tide is rising in multiple domains, and this is a wave that we will ride for many years to come.

Different Relationships with their Phones: iPhone versus Androidtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c285b53ef01bb07c73c2b970d2014-12-17T23:59:31-08:002014-12-19T00:35:09-08:00Two weeks of App Testing with Consumers spotlighted for me the fact that iPhone & Android users have VERY different relationships with their phones. The test case is a mobile marketplace that we are building that has separate iPhone and...hypermark

Two weeks of App Testing with Consumers spotlighted for me the fact that iPhone & Android users have VERY different relationships with their phones.

The test case is a mobile marketplace that we are building that has separate iPhone and Android apps.

The biggest difference between the two testing groups was that the Android users tended NOT to be mobile-first types, and tended not to be native app types.

From my own experiences building apps and then using the same apps on both platforms, it's a vicious cycle.

On the one hand, development is necessarily focused on an ideal target device with the latest version on Android.

On the other, the phones out in the wild have so many different form factors, and so much variety in terms of what OS is installed, that the experience never feels optimized.

iPhone is the exact opposite of this approach, which is why most iPhones and iPads are running the latest version of iOS.

Let me be clear. As a developer, you **could** optimize for all of these variations of Android, but it would take so much testing and optimization, that it would come at a cost of building new functionality.

No less, the Android end user wouldn't necessarily care about the extra effort in the same way an iOS user does.

Like I said, it's a vicious cycle.

Case in point, in the new app that we are building, one question in user testing was how important having a desktop web version of the functionality would be.

Get this, 90% of the Android users thought it was pretty important, most commonly because the test user saw the PC as the central part of their computing experience -- even though the app is for a highly mobile type of action.

By contrast, 90% of the iPhone users looked cockeyed at the question, noting that the action is designed for palm in the hand, on the go types of behaviors, adding (I'm paraphrasing) that their iPhone is their hub, not the PC.

Same questions. Same product feature for feature; a variety of young to middle age males and females, and the only difference is iPhone versus Android.

INFOGRAPHIC: Waves of Changetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c285b53ef01b8d0a76d37970c2014-12-12T02:01:37-08:002014-12-12T02:09:47-08:00For the past several months, I have been doing a lot of analysis around the Millennials. This lead me to need to compare it to Baby Boomers and Generation X. This is the Narrative that I captured looking at these...hypermark

For the past several months, I have been doing a lot of analysis around the Millennials.

This lead me to need to compare it to Baby Boomers and Generation X.

This is the Narrative that I captured looking at these different Eras.

Please consider this a Straw Man to Pick Apart, Extend or Rethink.

Note: Click Image to see Larger View.

Standing the Test of Time: 5 Thoughts on Apple Watchtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c285b53ef01b7c6df3d6f970b2014-09-13T03:53:31-07:002014-09-18T01:35:30-07:00“Apple builds great products that enrich people’s lives.” – Tim Cook Continuity is the idea that from Mac to iPhone to iPad to Apple TV to Apple Watch; Whether connecting from Home to Health to Car to the Enterprise, there...hypermark

“Apple builds great products that enrich people’s lives.” – Tim Cook

Continuity is the idea that from Mac to iPhone to iPad to Apple TV to Apple Watch; Whether connecting from Home to Health to Car to the Enterprise, there is a unity of experience that is contiguous; it flows.

When you walk into your living room, HomeKit will recognize your watch and unlock doors, set temperature controls, lighting and turn on the tv for you.

When you go for a brisk walk, pursue an ordinary day, or visit the doctor, HealthKit will kick in.

It will make you fitter, smarter about your health, and allowing primary caregivers and new forms of health service providers to have access to the information they need.

That way, they can take better care of you.

When out on an errand, and want to stop at Starbucks, Walgreens or Subway, Apple Pay is a touch away.

This is just logical, and the ultimate payoff of the next wave; namely, the notion that our myriad of devices and device-aware services get embedded to the point of invisibility. They just work all of the time.

Does this Watch Tick?

Such is the entry point for me in thinking about Apple Watch.

Let me begin by saying that I am deeply conflicted about Apple Watch.

There is a large part of me that looks at what Apple is doing in terms of creating a new kind of product and a new platform with a thriving ecosystem that supports it, and just marvels.

Who else could credibly pull this off but Apple?

The sheer artistry in what they created. The watches are unquestionably beautiful. Apple had to expand its understanding of new kinds of metallurgy, buckles, and sapphires, in the same way that they once had to figure out glass, screen and other fabrication technologies.

The addition of haptic response to touch based interaction opens up new forms of “reach out and touch someone” based communications and experiences, which I can see being great and tingly.

The basic structure of the Digital Crown is very well thought out, and magical in its simplicity and elegance.

From Faces and Glances to Siri, Quick Boards, Notifications and WatchKit apps, there is a grammar that is visible, coherent and which appears logical to the form factor.

The Activity app, and the three “ring” circus of Move, Exercise and Stand speak to the zen-like potential of lifestyle management.

But, don’t take my word for it. Do yourself a favor and watch the Apple Keynote announcing Apple Watch (at a minimum, watch this film on Apple Watch design).

Fashion Statement

Does anyone doubt that Apple is now and forever more a fashion brand? I’d posit that Apple could acquire Nike tomorrow, and not only would it make perfect sense, but it would seem "obvious" in retrospect.(Sidebar: Nike is about 12% of the market cap of Apple.)

Put another way, are new forms of denim and carbon-based wearables really that disconnected from what Apple does in the areas of design, material composition and solution stack assembly?

In this context, the acquisition of Beats starts to make sense. You see it in the fact that with Apple Watch, Apple starts to celebrate the diversity of the three watch segments – Watch Sport, Watch, and Watch Edition -- and supporting a lot more SKUs.

This is now irrevocably Tim Cook's Apple, and so it's time for all of us to Think Different before pulling out tired maxims about what Apple is (and is not).

When you look at this in the purest sense, Apple Watch is a celebration of design, innovation, integration and Continuity.

Apple Watch is a great big middle finger to the high priests of MVPs (minimum viable products), Free, and Low-End Disruption (see Clayton Christensen).

Who else but Apple could tackle all of the layers that make up Apple Watch to give life to beautiful jewelry and an extrapolated, fully realized domain?

I was wrong when I tweeted that if we're talking about the "watch" on Apple Watch, then Apple blew it. Apple Watch is indeed a celebration of the watch; much better than I thought, or frankly, could have imagined.

So Where’s the Deep Conflict?

My conflict with Apple Watch is that I wonder if Apple reflexively made Apple Watch a "watch" when they could have just as easily made it about your Wrist.

The thinking is that in assessing Apple Watch, it makes more sense to compare it to Google Glass than to the iPhone.

Both Google Glass & Apple Watch represent a new **kind** of sensory device, with new types of jobs yet to be defined, and all of the requisite challenges of answering 'WHY.'

By contrast, with iPhone, EVERYONE aspired to a device that could collapse phone, internet and media into one cohesive experience.

The questions were more along the lines of 'WHAT' and 'HOW.'

It's much less obvious that consumers are demanding an integrated watch, communication companion (since iPhone/Android is so good) and health/fitness (still a bit of niche).

I don't think that that is a bad thing, per se; just that it makes more sense to think of the challenges in terms of creating and cultivating a new kind of behavior, versus integrating and enhancing an existing set of activities as was the case with iPhone (and iPad).

Here, I think that a key variable in how successful Apple Watch will be, is how tethered MUST it be to iPhone.

The jogger who wants to use Apple Watch as their exercise monitor of choice doesn’t want to have to also bring their iPhone to capture GPS and run path.

Part of me thinks that answer lies in segmenting the portion of 200M iPhone users that are most likely to embrace Apple Watch for continuity of access, communications, command and control.

I can see Fleet Applications for Police, Army and Government workers. Hospital patients and University students seem natual and obvious. I can envision new kinds of sharing networks that harness Apple Watch as a dynamic entry key fob into an AirBNB style universe.

I guess my point is this. There are no guarantees; there is no textbook for creating a wholly new sensory experience at the scale Apple aims to do things.

With Apple Watch, attempting to prognosticate success or failure is folly. If anything, it's easier to recognize what failure looks like than what success will look like.

In that light, Apple has passed the first hurdle.

Then again, if not Apple doesn't pursue this BHAG (big, hairy, audacious goal), then who will carry the torch?

UPDATE: John Gruber of Daring Fireball wrote a truly excellent piece on the Apple Watch. It's a must read. His frame of analysis is very rich and reasoned. Here is a quote, which is very insightful when you think about it: "I think Apple Watch is the first product from an Apple that has outgrown the computer industry. Rather than settle for making computing devices, they are now using computing technology to make anything and everything where computing technology — particularly miniature technology — can revolutionize existing industries."

Getting to the Train Station on Timetag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c285b53ef01a511f4dd1d970c2014-08-12T00:02:06-07:002014-08-12T00:13:46-07:00In the pursuit of business success, we all struggle with it. "It could be better." "It's not quite ready." "I have so much on my plate right now." "I didn't get it done." Sometimes, it's a case of 'better' being...hypermark

In the pursuit of business success, we all struggle with it.

"It could be better."

"It's not quite ready."

"I have so much on my plate right now."

"I didn't get it done."

Sometimes, it's a case of 'better' being the enemy of 'good enough.'

Other times, it's a case of failing to see the forest from the trees.

But, know this.

Whether driven by over-reach, confusion, poor execution or inattention, you MUST recalibrate and lock in.

In moments like these, everything becomes subordinate to Getting to the Train Station on Time.

Apple Q3, 2014 Earnings Call: It's About Continuity and Gratificationtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c285b53ef01a511e73a61970c2014-07-22T21:20:52-07:002014-07-25T21:10:51-07:00"Friends say he has a gift for delaying gratification." Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg once attributed a chunk of his success to delaying gratification. Where he could have monetized Facebook sooner - at the cost of building a bigger audience -...hypermark

"Friends say he has a gift for delaying gratification."

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg once attributed a chunk of his success to delaying gratification. Where he could have monetized Facebook sooner - at the cost of building a bigger audience - he resisted the temptation.

Where he could have sold the company, and cashed out, he kept pursuing the "BHAG" (big, hairy audacious goal) of building the next Google, Apple or Microsoft.

While others may see a company that can't possibly keep selling more devices, quarter after quarter after quarter, I see a company that has continually avoided the gratification of going for market share and sales at all costs (i.e., at the price of margins, profits and cashflow).

This is no small task when one considers that investors, the media and virtually every pundit in the blogosphere is not so adept at delaying gratification.

Give them a beautiful suit, and they'll see only a loose thread.

Failure to seize a market - margins be damned - and the company gets dinged.

Unwillingness to be all things to all people - Amazon, Google and Facebook all rolled into one - and the company gets dinged.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is simultaneously unwilling to be his own man, and guilty of doing things that Steve would never do ("This would have never happened if Steve Jobs was still around).

But Apple in the iOS Era has always been about playing the long game. How else do you create a massive ecosystem of 800M devices that fit the lifestyle, daily flows and physical spaces of people at home, work, school and on the go?

How else to catalyze an explosion of Apps, Accessories and Services, that are not only immense in scale, not only deliver a superior user experience, not only drive unparalled loyalty, but unfathomable sales margins.

How many multi-billion dollar lines of business can one company create before they inevitably, unquestionably go out of business?

But, there must be an end-game, right?

Ultimately, all of this delaying of gratification, of withholding the child-like joy of chasing every market, usurping every partner, and competing with any and all who enter its universe - read: Amazon, Google, Facebook - has to come at a price, right?

Isn't it written in the Torah somewhere that Apple ALWAYS loses because they fail to be a commodity, as God, Jesus and Mohammed demand?

Continuity is the idea that from Mac to Mobile to Tablet to Home to Health to Car to the Enterprise, there is a unity of experience, that is contiguous; it flows.

Driving in your car? CarPlay kicks in. Walk into your living room, and HomeKit kicks in. Going for a jog, or visiting the doctor, and HealthKit kicks in. Walk into a Costco, and WalletKit kicks in (or whatever eWallet strategy Apple will set loose soon).

My point is this. UIltimately, the payoff of Post PC is that the devices get embedded to the point of invisibility...wait for it...because they just WORK. All the time.

Some believe that that renders the device moot, so Apple must lose.

I hold to the belief that the devices must be terrific, and the edge must be smart, specifically so we don't have to blindly trust a cloud to watch over us; to surveil us; and separate us from our data when things go haywire.

That's not to say that the Cloud doesn't matter, or that there aren't multitudes of problems that can't be solved when you intelligently bridge smart devices with a smarter cloud.

But, it's the not so subtle distinction between the notion - captured in every Apple Ad and Apple Store experience - that the INDIVIDUAL is at the center of the universe, that the consumer is the centerpiece; and an alternate vision that we are destined to all be PAWNS in some sentient, faceless borg that calculates, decides and dictates on our behalf.

It's no coincidence then that along with a runaway successful device business, that the App Store (and the iTunes Software and Services business line that underlies it), is the fastest growing segment of Apple's business, and the linchpin of a Continuity play that has been baking for seven years, since iOS was announced.

It's the notion that Ecosystems matter, that the Consumer, the Developer, the Accessory Partner, the Corporate Customer, the Book Publisher, the Car Maker and the Enterprise are all motivated by their own need to not only survive, but to individuate.

Ruminations on Retail: Why We Launched BrightStreet Venturestag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c285b53ef01a73defe99c970d2014-07-18T16:42:03-07:002014-07-18T16:49:58-07:00(Guest Column: Western Real Estate Business - July 2014) Consider the plight of the retailer: the rise of Amazon has attacked the margins that local retailers count on for survival. As a result, numerous segments, including video stores, music stores,...hypermark

(Guest Column: Western Real Estate Business - July 2014)

Consider the plight of the retailer: the rise of Amazon has attacked the margins that local retailers count on for survival.

As a result, numerous segments, including video stores, music stores, computer stores, bookstores, electronics and office supplies are either dead or dying. Sadly, this is a trend that is permanent and accelerating.

Meanwhile, the ascendance of the smartphone, led by Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android is changing everything.

There are about five billion devices creating universal experiences that are social, real time, data smart, perpetual, personal and just-in-time capable via millions of mobile apps.

This emerging reality gets to a universal truth of our time; namely, that software is ‘eating the world,’ and in the process, reshaping virtually all industries.

It’s given rise to Uber, Amazon, Airbnb, Google, iTunes, Facebook, Maps, and Yelp, but can there be any doubt that retail, media, marketing, manufacturing, transportation and telecom are being forever changed in the process as well?

In retail, for example, mobile has given the consumer the power of all knowledge at their fingertips. With this power, he or she can discern fair price or pursue a better deal – often online – in very few clicks.

It’s also empowered consumers to act as social amplifiers of reputation and experience. An extra half-star rating on Yelp can cause restaurants to have a full house 19% more frequently.

Critically, though, mobile plays a game-changing role in what is known as omni-channel. In the world of omni-channel, the consumer’s frame of reference encompasses online, bricks-and-mortar and mobile possibilities.

When done right, omni-channel can yield a 6X sales lift from the customers that engage with the merchant on all channels, including online, via mobile and in store. Such has been the experience of Walgreens.

Similarly, the rise of big data and data science is changing the means of analyzing, targeting and customizing the field of play that exists between retailers, consumers and shopping center owners.

Mobile has also disrupted the traditional ways that merchants acquired and connected with customers.

The customer acquisition tool kit used to consist of yellow pages, direct mail and newspaper ads. While your eyes can tell you that these marketing segments are decidedly unhealthy, there’s an even more obvious barometer: ask yourself if your children have ANY connection to yellow pages, paper mail, or print newspapers?

This is the new reality for retail. Mobile, when combined with data and the cloud, completely changes the game.

The simple truth is that we are working backwards from the consumer, what they expect and what is possible in this new era. We are also looking at the challenges that retailers face, and our role as owners and operators of shopping centers in fostering their success. That’s the defensive side of the equation.

In terms of offense, we believe the convergence of bricks and clicks represents one of the great opportunities of the next decade.

That is why every venture that emerges from our model needs to make sense as business offering enduring value.

We also believe that by sharing what we learn with our peers, a rising tide will lift all boats, which is very much in our interest.

That’s the backstory on why we created BrightStreet Ventures. The larger market has validated where we’re headed with mobile marketing innovation and real estate business intelligence (our company portal, powered by our Datex Property Solutions affiliate, garnered an ICSC MAXI nomination).

We had the opportunity to unveil this vision, and formally launch our new venture at ICSC RECON in Las Vegas, and the response was incredibly encouraging.

Mark Sigal is the Managing Director of BrightStreet Ventures in Woodland Hills, California.

Understanding Retail's Reboot: Four 'Big Picture' Trendstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c285b53ef01a73d8093b1970d2014-02-24T23:29:07-08:002014-02-25T08:51:37-08:00Jeff Jordan of Andreessen Horowitz has written in a compelling piece that we are in the midst of a profound structural shift from physical to digital retail. Having written about the need for the retail industry to undergo a reboot...hypermark

Jeff Jordan of Andreessen Horowitz has written in a compelling piece that we are in the midst of a profound structural shift from physical to digital retail.

Having written about the need for the retail industry to undergo a reboot myself, he's preaching to the choir.

What the above graphic (from the article) illustrates are the segments of the market getting most disrupted by online.

Between 2007-2011, in these segments online gained $35B in sales, while bricks and mortar lost $30B in sales.

In the big picture, there are four trends that are transforming everthing in retail:

Mobile Cloud: Post PC is mobile, social, client, cloud and context. It's growing to 10 billion devices. The field of play has changed dramatically.

Generational Shift: The generation that read the paper, used the yellow pages and eagerly checked the mail is fading. That irrevocably changes how merchants connect with consumers. How could it not?

Big Data: The data 'firehose'' from back office to market facing is wide and deep. The ability to visualize the flow of a business and tune its mechanics will yield many new and interesting personalization, marketing and marketplace experiences.

The End of the Beginningtag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c285b53ef01a511666b5b970c2014-02-07T22:22:25-08:002014-02-09T00:32:34-08:00"Is That All There Is?" - Peggy Lee Perspective changes everything. Looked at up close, Apple is boring, Facebook is in decline, and Silicon Valley is more about serving up mouthwatering perks and "F-U" liquidity events than real innovation. Yet,...hypermark

"Is That All There Is?" - Peggy Lee

Perspective changes everything.

Looked at up close, Apple is boring, Facebook is in decline, and Silicon Valley is more about serving up mouthwatering perks and "F-U" liquidity events than real innovation.

Yet, with a bit of perspective, we see how in a 30 year period, Apple has given rise to the PC, reinvented the phone, broke the hegemony of old media and telecom, and launched the Post PC era.

In fact, Apple is still growing so rapidly that in the last year alone, they generated three Fortune 500 companies worth of new income.

Now, the rumors are that they're launching a new payment system to take advantage of the 500 million iPhones and iPads in use today (many/most with a valid credit card on file).

Despite all of the talk that Facebook's dominion dies with the desktop, 77% of its users are accessing the service from mobile devices, generating over half of their advertising revenue.

Is Innovation Dead?

Now, of course, growth and money do not equate to insanely great.

So, is innovation dead? Are we doomed to a decade of Snapchat clones and Instagram wanna-bes?

Up close, it may seem like it, but with the benefit of some perspective, you realize how we are really at the end of the BEGINNING of the next wave.

Want some perspective? Consider this thought-provoking interview with Kevin Kelly, who helped launch Wired, and is one of the sharpest thinkers of our time.

Here's his take:

"If we were sent back with a time machine, even 20 years, and reported to people what we have right now and describe what we were going to get in this device in our pocket—we'd have this free encyclopedia, and we'd have street maps to most of the cities of the world, and we'd have box scores in real time and stock quotes and weather reports, PDFs for every manual in the world—we'd make this very, very, very long list of things that we would say we would have and we get on this device in our pocket, and then we would tell them that most of this content was free. You would simply be declared insane. They would say there is no economic model to make this. What is the economics of this? It doesn't make any sense, and it seems far-fetched and nearly impossible."

Of course, he's right.

What we take for granted as obvious and inevitable, was heretical just twenty years ago.

Doubt this assertion? Do a google search on "silicon snake oil" or "clifford stoll" and see what I mean.

Today, Stoll's opinions sound as ridiculous as witch burners in the time of Salem's Lot.

But then, it was conventional wisdom.

This gets to the nut of Kelly's perspective, which he espouses in great detail, and brilliantly, in his book, 'What Technology Wants.'

What Technology Wants envisions the rise of machines, networks, robots, sensors, systems, data and intelligence EVERYWHERE to the point that they become part of the fabric of life itself (Kelly calls this the Technium).

In other words, you aint seen nothing yet.

As Kelly puts it, "The next twenty years are going to make this last twenty years just pale. We're just at the beginning of the beginning of all these kind of changes. There's a sense that all the big things have happened, but relatively speaking, nothing big has happened yet."

Understanding New Mediums: Why Post PC is Not Merely the Web with a Native Wrappertag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c285b53ef01a73d6c1654970d2014-01-31T14:19:58-08:002014-02-01T01:42:04-08:00This is a fable for a future truth. There is an analog from the past that frames how I think about the rise of new mediums. It's the motion picture. Once upon a time, our notion of the motion picture...hypermark

This is a fable for a future truth.

There is an analog from the past that frames how I think about the rise of new mediums. It's the motion picture.

Once upon a time, our notion of the motion picture was that it was silent, with accompanying music to set the tone of the story, and sub-titles to stage specific scenes.

It was a simple medium that was inexpensive to distribute to theaters far and wide. It traveled well internationally, too (just "localize" a few text boxes).

Kind of like in the early days of the web.

Along comes the 'talkie,' and conventional wisdom saw the idea of driving movie narratives through talking actors as a fad at best, and an expensive gimmick at worst.

It required new types of actors, new approaches to filming and costly retrofitting of theaters.

Amazingly, in just four years the talkie subsumed the silent picture.

What's interesting is that this occurrence not only changed how movies were made, and the economics of the movie business, but it fundamentally changed our notion of a what a movie could BE.

It became a different medium.

The Rise of a New Medium

This is what the next wave will look like.

It will change our notion of what computing, connecting and communicating experiences can be.

The magical opporunities will come from figuring out the types of interactions that come to life when:

Client and Cloud Converge;

The field of play is 10 Billion Devices worldwide

Our concept of an interaction can mean "Humans," "Machine-Assisted," or "Autonomous and Invisible."

The tendency for consumers, technologists, analysts and investors is to confuse attributes, like browsers and URLs, with outcomes.

But attributes are merely artifacts.

Outcomes are aspirational; jobs to be defined; the embodiment of a medium.

Why? Because such experiences have a notion of state, distribution, message and payload.

Here, I'd assert that there are a lot of interaction models and interesting workflows that this type of runtime structure can support.

It lends itself to new experiential forms that are the "talkies" to today's "silent" web.

What's Past is Prologue

Ironically, unlike the many mediums to get disrupted by digital - music, books, newspapers, magazines, broadcast television - the talkie, an early twentieth century creation, has stood the test of time.

Dots versus Lines in the Matter of Google and Appletag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c285b53ef01a5113a76a9970c2014-01-28T23:02:06-08:002014-01-28T23:10:23-08:00Jean-Louis Gassée wrote a thought provoking piece called 'Puzzling Over Google's Nest Acquisition.' In it, he wondered why Google opted to make Nest its second biggest acquisition at $3.2B. Gassée couldn't connect the dots. I'd argue that the Nest story...hypermark

Jean-Louis Gassée wrote a thought provoking piece called 'Puzzling Over Google's Nest Acquisition.' In it, he wondered why Google opted to make Nest its second biggest acquisition at $3.2B. Gassée couldn't connect the dots.

I'd argue that the Nest story is indicative of the difference between Google and Apple.

It’s dots vs. lines. The Google approach is to keep putting dots on the board on the premise that sooner or later, enough of a pattern will emerge to connect those dots.

By contrast, everything that Apple does is about drawing well formed lines.

Both have their virtues, but they are fundamentally different approaches to looking at markets, platforms and the types of solutions that are worth their investment.

Dots centricity means Google is simultaneously willing to pursue strategies that are: A) Big, wild ass bets that have low probability of success; B) Sustaining investments that protect and extend their core business; and C) Get in the game investments that extend the “field of play” that they have a relevance for.

In this regard, they don’t always even distinguish between concept products, prototypes and real shipping products that contribute material revenues and profits.

Apple, on the other hand, is only willing to make investments in strategies for which they can become the standard bearer within; that have high consumer engagement to the point of love by the consumer; and for which there is a product (refresh) lifecycle that can be predictability modeled AND a hardware-software-service-tools-media platform that underlies it, thereby anchoring their differentiation.

In the case of Google, it's an approach that has yielded: YouTube, Google Maps, Android, Gmail, Chrome, AdWords/AdSense and Analytics.

The Apple approach has yielded a unity of iOS devices, Macs, iTunes and the App Store.

Again, a lot of this comes down to how one defines success and what are the metrics that underlie that success.

The Apple way is clearly not the Google way -- any more than the Amazon way isn’t reflective of either Apple or Google.

Apple founder Steve Jobs had a very zen-like take on dot-connecting:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

Amen to that.

No good deed goes unpunished at the iPhone companytag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c285b53ef01a73d679d59970d2014-01-27T22:33:47-08:002014-01-30T12:52:20-08:00The moral of the story when it comes to the Apple investor is that no good deed goes unpunished. Expect Apple stock to get hammered on Tuesday for what is a very real shortfall in the projections of analysts. Of...hypermark

The moral of the story when it comes to the Apple investor is that no good deed goes unpunished. Expect Apple stock to get hammered on Tuesday for what is a very real shortfall in the projections of analysts.

Of course, the moral of the story here is that Apple specifically told its investors a year ago that it was no longer going to "manage" earnings expectations with pre-ordained beats.

So what happened in the most recent quarter? Apple hit its own sales projections, which if you take the company's specific proclamations at face value, was the real, achievable goal.

Given Apple's unparalleled track record, you'd think that they've earned some benefit of the doubt. Namely, that they actually know what they are doing.

But, purely as a stock, Apple is seen as the iPhone company.

And the picture there is decidedly more complex. At a minimum, iPhone sales growth is flattening (for now). China Mobile could be anything from a moonshot to mediocre.

Footnote: China Mobile is the largest network in the world, with over 750 million customers.

From the tenor of the call, it seems clear that the company misread consumer sentiment (and demand) for the iPhone 5c. What does that say about the Apple innovation engine post Steve?

Domestic sales were very strong, but flat, and there were some rumblings of carriers stretching out the time periods on consumer refresh cycles.

A lot of the attention shifts to emerging markets and Asia driving growth. Very possible, but not guaranteed.

At the same time, you have to be pretty dense to diminish what 51M iPhones in a quarter means in terms of the depth of the iOS platform.

This completely discounts the potential for Apple to culitvate an ewallet (read this story on Starbucks $1.4 billion in quarterly gift cards).

I'm starting to feel pretty strongly that mobile payments will be a front seat item for Apple very soon.

Oh, and there's iPad, which did pretty well too. If there's a device that embodies post pc computing, it's the iPad.

I would love to see the company put more energy towards developing integrator channels.

That way it can penetrate more enterprise-scale verticals, like medical, pharma, field sales, retail and training, where it already has footholds.

The other big variable is that the Apple retail stores are still humming along.

They host 144 million visitors at their stores each quarter, or about 21,000 visitors per store, per week.

With ~420 stores open, average revenue per store was $16.7 million, compared to $16.3 million in the year ago quarter.

By design, Apple's end-to-end-ness remains its biggest advantage.

The company with $158.8 billion in cash (or equivalents), after adding $12 billion in the quarter should get hammered on Tuesday.

It's small thanks for being transparent, disciplined, prolific and purpose-driven.

Speaking of which, let me end this post with this answer from Apple CEO Tim Cook on whether the company is actively pursuing the Mobile Payments space:

"Let me sort of avoid the last part of your question, but in general, we’re seeing that people love being able to buy content, whether it’s music or movies or books, from their iPhone, using Touch ID. It’s incredibly simple and easy and elegant, and it’s clear that there’s a lot of opportunity there.

The mobile payments area in general is one that we’ve been intrigued with, and that was one of the thoughts behind Touch ID. But we’re not limiting ourselves just to that. So I don’t have anything specific to announce today, but you can tell by looking at the demographics of our customers and the amount of commerce that goes through iOS devices versus the competition that it’s a big opportunity on the platform."

Seems near term.

UPDATE: With rumors heating up about Apple’s Mobile Payments plans, PayPal wants in as an Apple partner (highly unlikely to happy).

The Daily To Do - Design Your Daytag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c285b53ef01a5110ffffb970c2014-01-17T21:16:36-08:002014-11-21T01:54:03-08:00I read a great article by Jay Yarow in Business Insider called, 'This Is The Internal Grading System Google Uses For Its Employees — And You Should Use It Too.' It's about OKR's, an organizational system called Objectives and Key...hypermark

It's about OKR's, an organizational system called Objectives and Key Results that was pioneered by Intel.

The basic premise of OKR's is conveyed by Mark Pincus:

“John Doerr [the venture capitalist] sold me on this idea of OKR’s, which stands for objectives and key results. It was developed at Intel and used at Google, and the idea is that the whole company and every group has one objective and three measurable key results, and if you achieve two of the three, you achieve your overall objective, and if you achieve all three, you’ve really killed it.”

This just makes sense.

It got me thinking about how I could incorporate elements of OKR's within my business (and life).

The Big idea is Designing Your Day with a Daily To Do List

After having read 'The Checklist Manifesto' by Atul Gawande (one of my favorite writers), I am now a big believer in the power of Checklists.

The idea is that whenever possible, try to "Design" your day.

You do this by creating a To Do List.

It's really that simple. The Daily To Do has only two elements:

One Objective: One task succinctly defined;

Three Key Results: Three outcomes you'd like to see happen;

When applicable, items in The Daily To Do can be Calendared so you can fit things into the Desired Flow of your day.

This same model scales to a Team, Department and Company level. Try it!